The Ideology of Equality

By President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., address delivered in the Priesthood Session of General Conference. [Deseret Book Company, comp., Messages of Inspiration (SLC: Deseret Book Company, 1957), pp. 21–30. Conference Report, October 1956, pp. 82-86.] Emphasis added.

My brethren: We seem to be living in an age of ideologies of various kinds. The things that used to influence men and nations and lead them into conflict,—ordinary ambition, thirst for territory, thirst for power, still remain, but there have come to supersede them certain ideologies which move nations, sometimes in rebellion against the past, sometimes to build up new concepts and new rules.

One of these ideologies which is perhaps politically not so important but which socially is most important, has been talked about tonight by Brother Mark E. Petersen,—the ideology which lowers moral standards that we have been taught in the past to regard as sacred. I endorse all that Brother Mark has said tonight and urge you bishops, presidents of stakes, and heads of households, to follow his advice.

I am going to talk tonight, or plan to, about another ideology, and I should like, in all humility on my part, to have the assistance of your faith and prayers. I shall try not to be too long; it may be I shall be a bit dull. I am going to read in part, perhaps a good part, what I say.

The ideology I have in mind is what I might call the ideology of equality. We have a sort of feeling about our own people in our nation and the nations of the world, that everybody is equal to everybody else. You remember that the Declaration of Independence said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Now, I am not going to try to tell you what that principle means, or where it leads; all I want to get out of that is that here are three intelligences, spirits, and that they are not equal, even the two are unequal. There is the one, there is the second more intelligent than the first, and there is the third more intelligent than the other two.

I like to think of that, as I have said, as spiritual relativity.

I am going on, now, and reading from the third chapter of Abraham. The Lord has been talking about the intelligences, and he says:

In a minute or two I will refer to this same observation in connection with the Priesthood.

Then the scripture tells us that there were two who stood up. Each one wanted to create this new world that they had talked about. This is the Grand Council that we talk about, where all of us presumably were. Some were "noble and great ones," and some of us were not. We were not equal in that Grand Council, have no mistake about that. There it was decided:

I am not undertaking to declare doctrine or Gospel, but as I read that, and as I understand it, it means that after we, so to speak, have been taken out, those who have kept their first estates, and we are not the only ones, there remains the great over-plus. They do not have the same heritage, the same kingdom, the same glory, that we shall have, and they have and call fall into [1] the terrestrial, [2] the telestial, and then the Doctrine and Covenants tells us there is [3] a kingdom without any glory. (D&C 88:24.)

My point is that we were not equal at the beginning as intelligences; we were not equal in the Grand Council. We had our agency over there, and the Lord has so told us that and that it was because of the exercise of that agency that a third of the hosts of heaven rebelled. They did not keep their first estate and apparently the punishment to be inflicted upon them for their rebellion was that they should not have bodies.

Then the Lord goes on and tells us about the two beings who came and offered to build this earth and implement its creation. Satan, we learn from other scriptures, declared that he wold save everybody, apparently either take away their free agency or else cause that nothing that they did would be a crime. The other one said he would do the will of the Father. The Father said that he would take the one who said he would do his will. Then it says:

Now, this matter of body which, I take it, will come to those who keep their first estate; and those who do not keep their first estate, but who do not belong to the rebellious group, they all get bodies too. We have our bodies. We are not all born in the same circumstances, with the same advantages, and all the rest of it. But evidently the possession of a body was a great consideration, and I refer you, in that connection to the incident of the Gadarene demons.

You will remember that when the Savior approached them, they said, "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God?" This was one case where the demons, themselves, bore testimony that Jesus was the Christ. "What have we to do with thee?"

And then they asked that the Savior, (when he cast them out of the man—they said they were "legion") that the Savior would permit them to go into the nearby herd of swine. I have always thought that there was a beautiful expression there. They asked him not to send them out into the "deep." You will recall that they went into the swine, and the swine ran down into the sea and were drowned. (Mt 8:28–34; Mk 5:1–20; Lk 8:26–39.)

I have always thought that that indicated very, very clearly how valuable an earthly body is,—that they were willing in order to have possession, apparently even for the moment, of a body, to go into the body of a swine.

Now, I am trying to get out of all this only the one fundamental thought— we were not all equal at the beginning; we were not all equal at the Grand Council; we have never been all equal at any time since, and apparently we never shall be.

Now as to the Priesthood: Adam, the Prophet Joseph Smith tells us, received his Priesthood before the creation of the world, as I recall it. That is when he got his Priesthood. Seemingly it was not given to everybody. We do not know who else received it besides Adam, but probably some. The Prophet Joseph said, "I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council." And he said, "Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was." (Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 2^nd ed., 1940, 157, 365.)

I like to think that perhaps we may have been there at that Grand Council and that we, the great body of this Church, with our divine commandments, our divine destiny, our divine responsibility, to carry the Gospel to the nations of the earth—I like to think that we were endowed somehow with a mission, perhaps with the Priesthood, to carry on the work which we have to do.

Now, the Prophet told us that from that time down, apparently until the time of Moses, the Priesthood descended in a regular line from father to son, through their succeeding generations. (D&C 84.)

You will remember at the very beginning there was a contest in the Priesthood. At any rate, Cain offered a sacrifice that was not acceptable to the Lord. You know the result. (Gen 4.)

From that time on down to the time of Moses, we note that the men that sere named (they are named in the Doctrine and Covenants, Sections 84 and 107) carried on the Priesthood. It does not seem to have been a common endowment. Everybody has not offering sacrifice, but only those who were chosen by the Lord.

When you come down to Moses, remember Moses had the Melchizedek Priesthood, which he received from Jethro, his father-in-law, at the beginning of his work. (D&C 84:6.) He seems to have been the only one among the Israelites who then held the Melchizedek Priesthood. He tried, you will recall we are told, to have Israel fit itself to partake of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Israel would not do it, and so there was established the Aaronic Priesthood, and that was bestowed upon Aaron and his family. (D&C 84:18 ff.)

Way along at the beginning, soon after they began the exodus, Aaron and Miriam, the sister, apparently basing their actions upon the fact that Moses had married an Egyptian, Ethiopian, nevertheless it appears in the account that they accused Moses, who held the Melchizedek Priesthood and Aaron held only the Aaronic Priesthood—accused Moses of usurping power that they had formerly possessed. You will recall that they were severely chastened, chastised. Miriam was stricken with leprosy. (Num 12.)

I have always thought that there was in this an indication of the priesthood status of women, because of the punishment which apparently was inflicted upon Aaron, which differed from the punishment which was inflicted upon Miriam,—that here was an indication that women did not receive the Priesthood, and certainly so far as we know, women have not had the Priesthood. Miriam's punishment may have covered her seeming claim that she had a right to priesthood powers.

When that was settled, you will remember that a Levite, Korah, and Dathan and Abiram, apparently Reubenites, rebelled against Moses and said he was taking too much upon himself. They did not have the Priesthood that Moses had, and they did not have the authority that Aaron had. They rebelled. I will not take time to do more than tell you that finally a challenge was issued by Moses. They came out with their censers, and the earth opened and swallowed them up. (Num 16.)

I want to get from this the proposition that Israel, generally, did not have the Priesthood that Aaron had. Even the Levites, who had a secondary kind of officiating authority in taking care of the tabernacle, did not have the right to offer sacrifice, which belonged entirely to Aaron and his sons. (Num 16.)

And you may recall that rather early in their Priesthood experience there were two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, who offered "strange fire" before the Lord, and they were smitten, killed. (Lev 10.)

First, there never was a time when all spirits were equal, so far as the Lord has revealed; so far as he has revealed, there never will be a time when all spirits are equal. He has provided different kingdoms and glories for the different kinds of individuals as they come to this earth, and I can imagine, having in mind the Gadarene demons, I can imagine that those who did not keep their first estate but who still may come to earth and get a body, are anxious to come and get a body no matter what the conditions are, if we are to judge by the anxiety of those demons who were cast out and who asked that they be permitted to enter the swine.

Next, the Priesthood has never been possessed by all individuals; the Lord has chosen those to whom he wishes to delegate his authority. He has carefully guarded the exercise of that authority. Some, our sisters, for instance, have never held the priesthood.

Thank you, brethren, for your kindness.

I bear you my testimony that the Lord lives. I bear you my testimony that Jesus is the Christ, that he lived, was crucified, died, was resurrected.

I bear you my testimony that the Priesthood has been restored to us through the restoration that came through the Prophet. I bear you my testimony that all of the rights and the powers which Joseph had have descended from him till now and that they are now possessed by President David O. McKay.

May the Lord bless us and build up our testimonies, enable us to understand the principles of the Gospel and not get off on the theory of this ideology that everybody is alike, and all have equal rights,—our rights depend upon our course before we came here, and our course since we arrived.

God bless you, I pray in the name of his Son. Amen.